The novel “Starter Villain” by John Scalzi was published for the first time in 2023. It won the Alex Award as one of the novels of the year written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18.

Charlie Fitzer has gone through several personal and professional hardships with the result that he lives with his cats with the meager salary of a substitute teacher in the house of which his father left him the right to live. He’d like to turn his life around by taking over a pub whose owner intends to retire but his hopes of obtaining a loan from the bank seem slim to none.

While he’s mulling over his options, Charlie is informed of the death of his uncle Jake, with whom he hadn’t had contact for many years following a huge fight with his father. Jake’s assistant Mathilda Morrison asks him to speak at his uncle’s funeral in exchange for an inheritance. At the funeral, Charlie finds strange people who only want to make sure that Jake is really dead. Things get even stranger when Charlie’s house is blown up and Morrison tells him to follow his cat Hera.